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Nowhere in Italy, accordingly, were the scenes of the legends of Asia Minor so vividly and tenaciously localized as in the district of Cumae, where the earliest voyagers to the west, full of those legends of western wonders, first stepped upon the fabled land and left the traces of that world of story, which they believed that they were treading, in the rocks of the Sirens and the lake of Avernus leading to the lower world.
After Cumae and Capua had become Roman, nothing so naturally suggested itself to the Romans as the subjugation of the Greek city Neapolis, which ruled also over the Greek islands in the bay the only town not yet reduced to subjection within the field of the Roman power.
Nero's Baths, the ruins of Baiae, the Temple of Serapis; Cumae, where the Cumaen Sybil interpreted the oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its ancient submerged city still visible far down in its depths these and a hundred other points of interest we examined with critical imbecility, but the Grotto of the Dog claimed our chief attention, because we had heard and read so much about it.
I pray thee, son of Kronos, grant that the Phenician and the Tuscan war-cry be hushed at home, since they have beheld the calamity of their ships that befell them before Cumae, even how they were smitten by the captain of the Syracusans, who from their swift ships hurled their youth into the sea, to deliver Hellas from the bondage of the oppressor.
The Roman lady wished to quit Cumae, where she had lived for some years; she purposed, moreover, to take away with her a maiden of Gothic race, who, though not treated as a captive, had been under observation since she was sent to dwell here by Belisarius. This could not pass as a matter of small moment.
This was not the first association that Rome had had with Cumae, for in all probability the worship of Apollo had spread from there into Rome toward the close of the kingdom. Apollo and the books were connected at Cumae, for it was Apollo who inspired the Sibyl, and the oracles were his commands, but it is almost certain that Apollo came to Rome in advance of the oracles.
He found at Hamae the camp abandoned by the enemy, where there was nothing to be seen but the traces of the recent carnage, and the bodies of his allies strewed in every part. Some advised him to lead his troops immediately thence to Cumae, and assault the town.
In a poor and dirty room, he made shift to dine on such food as could be offered him; then lay down on the truckle bed, and slept for an hour or two. A knock at the door awoke him. It was Felix, who brought the news that Marcian was at Cumae. 'You have seen him? cried Basil, astonished and eager. 'His servant Sagaris, Felix replied.
Puteoli was the chief port for Oriental ships, including Egypt, and it also had commercial relations with Delos. At this later date it supplied Rome with gods in somewhat the same way that Cumae, in the same neighbourhood, had done centuries before.
Delphi and Cumae are not expected to explain what they say. It is the habit of our New England towns to celebrate their own worthies and their own deeds on occasions like this, with more or less of rhetorical gratitude and self-felicitation.
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